Western Visionette Restoration

[vts1134]

Another tidbit of circumstantial evidence to chew over. Below is a link to an article written by William N Parker who worked for Western Television Company. The article is a fantastic history of his recollections in the mechanical television field. On the third page he says the following:

"I arrived in Chicago about the middle of May with my first assignment; that of modifying Crosley three-dial, metal box, trf receivers for operation at 2100 kc. The 171 output tube passed sufficient current to operate a plate-type neon lamp."

So it seems Western was using Crosley tuners at some point early on before they released their own version. Perhaps my set predates the Visionette entirely?

http://www.antiquewireless.org/uploa...television.pdf

[Steve McVoy]

John, here is my thinking.

This set didn't appear in any sales literature that I'm aware of. Western may have bought some console cabinets and installed Visionette assemblies (they were available as kits) for demonstration purposes, perhaps with the idea that they might sell a console model. I doubt if yours predates the Visionette since it uses the exact same mechanism. So, your set might be a Western prototype.

Another possibility is that a cabinet company in Chicago made that cabinet and was selling it to the public for installation of a Visionette assembly.